


An Old Man's Winter Night

by whatwecan



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gratuitous Frost Quotes, Howard's Pajamas, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8084506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatwecan/pseuds/whatwecan
Summary: What kept his eyes from giving back the gazeWas the lamp tilted near them in his hand.What kept him from remembering what it wasThat brought him to that creaking room was age- Robert Frost





	

It’d grown dark by the time Rose finally found the Tardis, the old key rasping and groaning in the lock before turning over. A few dead leaves rustled over the threshold as she entered only to be swept out again by the closing door. The console room was different, posher, but she recognized the familiar dim lighting he used on rare occasions when he meant to sleep. 

The Tardis hummed a lazy unsurprised welcome. She’d foreseen this moment all along. 

Rose was tired. The canon hadn’t improved for it’s rest in storage and it’d been a long journey. After only a seconds consideration, she headed for the Doctor’s room.  
—

It was a silly habit really. The Doctor’s Gallifreyan biology made typical human grooming habits largely unnecessary. But after so long cohabiting with and being well… together with them, it was somehow comforting. 

So when Rose walked in, fresh and lovely as untrod clover, his mouth dropped open and a red toothbrush clattered to his feet.

She smiled. 

(He’d visited planets whose languid rotation caused the nights to last months. Whose shabby, tattered citizenry assembled at cliffs to herald each dawn.)

She was the same. She was here and she was the same. Seeing her now, the cherished tintype memories snapped suddenly back into crisp focus, dim images retraced watercolor bright.

“How did you do it?” His voice was dog-eared and worn, as if he were the faded memory. 

He’d never allowed himself to imagine a reunion, the road of that fantasy a particularly dark and bramble strewn path. But if he had, it surely would not have been like this. 

His face, the first in over a thousand years born without the sight of hers burned into his retinas, and it showed. The worn ancient jim jams he wore, patched and tattered from centuries of use, holes worn into the trouser cuffs where he’d walked on them as a shorter man.

Her hand fluttered moth-like to her face and he remembered now how her cheeks would itch when she was nervous. 

“You trapped me in a universe with nearly unlimited funds, a chunk of Tardis, the makings of a dimension canon and a half Time Lord genius.” She shrugged. "What did you think would happen?“

I didn’t think, he wanted to scream. Forgive me. But instead he just shook his head, whispered "I was the one who was trapped.”

Yet here she was, the three feet between them killing him faster than a universe had before. A voracious blaze instead of the slow gnawing smolder he’d become used to. 

“You crossed the void?”

It was a question, a statement, a plea. Rose just gestured to the space between them.

“Not yet.”

The Doctor looked at his hands, long fingers, old this time. Hands to match his hearts. But he’d lop one off again and give it to her, if it made her happy.

“What about…” he wiggled his fingers at her. It’d been a fighting hand once, it’s fight now long gone. 

Rose just smiled, shook her head. For the first time he noticed the wide gold band by the key at her breast.

“He had a good life, he… he knew before I did.”

An awkward ungainly laugh struggled it’s way from Rose’s lips and wobbled through the silence between them, the wide, white corpus callosum of things unsaid. 

He fidgeted, scant narrow movements, weight shifting as a frail man shifts from thin frost paned windows towards a warm hearth. He opened his hand where he’d clenched it round the memory of a sword. HIs open palms a supplication. 

Their eyes met.

The silence wasn’t a barrier after all. He knew how to fill silence. There was no void between them, just space. 

The Doctor knew how to travel through space.

She tucked her head, still pink and yellow after all this time against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her at last. Hands and hearts. Her tears soaked the ragged top of his pajamas and he could feel his own against the lines of his face.

He kissed her through tears, sunshine on a rainy day. 

She smoothed the wet fabric down with her thumb, pulled back a step to look at him before he tugged her back in. He wasn’t ready yet, maybe in a moment, maybe in a hundred years.

“Doctor, why are you still wearing that. Isn’t it? Wasn’t it Howards?”

It was, but it’d seen better days. 

“Oh Rose, how could I not? The suit doesn’t fit any more, the coats gone, I’ve changed my face.”

He wanted to tell her then. How he’d been nine hundred years old when he met her but he’d never felt it until now. How it isn’t the years that age but regret, the daily mediation between hearts that have found love, and the knowledge that you’ve missed your chance. How you think you can go on, until you realize it does too, a river of regret running through your chest, slowly wearing you down.

He wanted to tell her everything, every mistake, every small joy, every sin. But instead he let her lay him down, and ease the clothes of a man, long dead from his shoulders. 

It was time for a fresh start.


End file.
